Babar says policy towards Afghanistan must be revisited

Peace and development in tribal areas will remain elusive until the black elephant in the black hole of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is identified and reined in. This was stated by Senator Farhatullah Babar at a multi-party conference on FATA merger in the Pakhtunkhwa province organized by the Awami National Party (ANP) in Islamabad on Thursday.
Farhatullah Babar said Peace and development is also linked to peace in Afghanistan. The guidelines formulated by the Senate proposed an agreed mechanism for verification of cross border allegations. The policy towards Afghanistan must be revisited to drive away the elephant from the room, he said. Stop treating Afghanistan as 5th province and treat it with respect as a sovereign country, PPP lawmaker said, according to a press release issued here on Thursday.
Babar further stated that we must condemn and denounce Trump for blaming Pakistan for US failures in Afghanistan but it should not prevent us from looking inwardly also to chase away the elephant. He wondered why the previous decision to extend the jurisdiction of Peshawar High Court (PHC) had been changed and instead, the jurisdiction of the Islamabad High Court extended. It seems that the policy makers are not bothered about difficulties faced by the litigants of the FATA in traveling from far-off places to IHC, said Babar.
Farhatullah Babar said the KPK assembly has passed unanimous resolutions demanding extension of jurisdiction of PHC to tribal areas and the PHC in a 2014 verdict asked the federal government to make legislation. He wondered over changing the decision of extending the jurisdictions of PHC to FATA by the Federal govt and said that it reflected Islamabad's mindset to foist itself on people of FATA even if symbolically. This mindset derived sadistic pleasure in flaunting Islamabad in relation to any move in tribal areas, Babar opined.
"It reflects a hidden desire to continue remote control of tribal from Aiwan-e-Sadar. FATA is remote controlled in times of peace from Presidency and in times of war, it is operated from Virginia, US through remote controlled drones", said PPP Lawmaker.
About the merger of FATA in KPK, he said keeping in view the administrative, social, cultural, linguistic, political and geographical conditions and that all roads from FATA led into KPK merger in the province was most logical. He said those political parties which fear that merger will change the drivers of political discourse in FATA and the mosque and the pulpit will no longer dominate the political discourse, were opposed to merger.-PR